Methods for producing user-configurable accented presentations

ABSTRACT

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for the production of accented presentations using pre-defined templates and material, which presentations may be in a printed or scrap-booked format. A server system may be made available to clients over a network, that server providing templates, patterns and associated material, the server providing a client with executable instructions enabling a user to make selections to a final accented presentation. The server system may receive an order including an identification of a template and user selections, and may include an interpretive and production system that fabricates a final accented presentation, or a part of fabrication and/or assembly thereof. Detailed information on various example embodiments of the inventions are provided in the Detailed Description below, and the inventions are defined by the appended claims.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional Application No.61/229,717 filed Jul. 30, 2009, which is incorporated by reference inits entirety. This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S.application Ser. No. 12/471,330 filed May 22, 2009 entitled “Systems andMethods for Dynamically Generating Graphical Memorabilia Projects forPresentation and Use”, which is also incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND

Organized physical presentations of information have been known for manyyears. It is often desirable to preserve and transfer a physicalrepresentation of information from one person to another whilemaintaining a context with such a transfer.

One of the oldest kinds of presentations is a book. The creation ofbooks was originally a manual operation, requiring much labor. Printingtechnologies were developed, resulting in an author's ability todistribute a presentation more widely. However, printed presentationshave always suffered from the limitations of the printing process, andalthough printing technologies have advanced from printing presses tomodern multi-color desktop printers, these technologies have generallybeen limited to the production of words and images on simple sheets ofpaper.

There are those for whom the uniformity of printing processes isundesirable in a presentation. One of the main reasons for this is thatprinted presentations lack a certain personal touch. One can add ahandwritten note to a printed presentation, but some desire a mode ofgreater personal expression. This is often desired in a personal mementoor record, such as in a family photo album or in a corporate history. Toachieve this, persons have collected various elements expressingfeelings or recording aspects of the events depicted. For example, it isknown to press a leaf in the pages of a photo album at the location inwhich photographs are attached of a trip to view autumn leaves. It isalso known for a person to save invitations and bits of decoration froman event, such as a corporate party or a wedding, and embed these into apresentation of these events.

Some have taken this a step further, and have sought to accent apresentation with a personal touch through the use of papers, stickers,labels, ribbons and other material attachable to a presentation. Forexample, one can obtain images related to live events, such as the birthof a child, which images might for example be “ABC” blocks, teddy bearsand cradles. In other cases, it is desirable to frame or decoratephotographs within a presentation, for which a person may create or usepre-printed accents. There is a wide selection of materials availablefor such “scrapbooking” activities.

Even though those materials are available, the creator of an accentedpresentation is still burdened with the same laborious and manual taskof assembling accented pages as from centuries ago. This task involvesobtaining and fashioning these accents, which may include shopping forappropriate materials and cutting, folding and otherwise fashioning theminto the desired accents. For those preparing only a page or two ofpersonal presentation, this is not significant. However, until recentlythere has not been a way for a creator to efficiently create accents fora presentation having a large number of pages.

The claimed systems and methods relate generally to systems that canproduce visual presentations by selections and content made by anend-user, and more particularly to systems that interact with a clientdevice over a network, providing the client device templates and contentrelated to choices made available, and further providing instructionsexecutable by the client device capable of interpreting providedtemplates and rendering visual representations of a final user-accentedpresentation in accordance with selections made.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for the production of accentedpresentations using pre-defined templates and material, whichpresentations may be in a printed or scrap-booked format. A serversystem may be made available to clients over a network, that serverproviding templates, patterns and associated material, the serverproviding a client with executable instructions enabling a user to makeselections to a final accented presentation. The server system mayreceive an order including an identification of a template and userselections, and may include an interpretive and production system thatfabricates a final accented presentation, or a part of fabricationand/or assembly thereof. Detailed information on various exampleembodiments of the inventions are provided in the Detailed Descriptionbelow, and the inventions are defined by the appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates the elements of an accent template.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary set of patterns and colors available for usein accent templates.

FIG. 3 conceptually illustrates the construction of two exemplarythemes.

FIG. 4 illustrates several sets of patterns forming several exemplarythemes.

FIG. 5 shows a theme having patterns and other objects and content.

FIG. 6 illustrates the application of a theme to an exemplary type ofaccent template.

FIG. 7 shows the insertion of user-content images into the theme-appliedaccent template of FIG. 6.

FIG. 8 shows theme-applied accent elements as cut from common material.

FIG. 9 illustrates the combinations available by rotation applied to anexemplary template.

FIG. 10 conceptually illustrates a client-server system for providing toa networked user the services of a provider of accent templates.

FIG. 11 conceptually illustrates a server system for production ofaccented presentation content as specified by a user through accenttemplates.

Reference will now be made in detail to particular implementations ofthe various inventions described herein in their various aspects,examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and inthe detailed description below.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows the construction of one type of accent template, which canbe used in the creation of accents for a page of a presentation.Hereinafter an accent template, or merely template, is an object thatcontains specifications for the position of visual elements within arendered image and/or an accented product, as will become clear throughthe explanations below. Exemplary template 10 is shown in in form withits accent elements in position, and the individual accent elementssurrounding in conceptual form. In this example, accent elements aredivided into three groups or “slots”, meaning that elements within thesegroups are to share a common material, pattern, texture or otherquality. A first group is formed by accent elements 11 a and 11 b, asecond group by element 12 a, and a third group by elements 13 a, 13 band 13 c. As shown, each accent element in this example has a definedshape and size, which here is rectangular in several widths and heights.It is to be understood that the rectangular shape shown here is merelyillustrative, and that accent elements of other shapes, sizes, formatsand forms can be equally used.

As shown in FIG. 1, the accent elements have an existence that islogically independent from the template. That is because at the time theaccents corresponding to the accent elements are fabricated, they may beindependent objects from the presentation page into which they are to beincorporated. If desired, these accent elements may have an orientationattribute that specifies a direction for the fabricated accent. Forexample, it may be that the material from which an accent is to befabricated contains a pattern, such as a printed pattern or a fabricnap, that should run in a certain direction on the final page. It mightalso be that the fabricated accents are to carry a common orientationwith respect to each other, but orientation with respect to the page isnot important. It may also be that accents might be oriented differentlyfor effect, or that a random orientation is acceptable or desired.

Even though there is a certain independence of the accent elements fromthe template, the template itself contains the definition of the accentelements that define the contents of the presentation page. These accentelements are herein referred to as accent pairs, although an accentelement may contain more than two informational items, as explainedbelow. An accent pair contains at least two items of information for theaccent to which it refers, which are the position of the accent in thetemplate and the slot to which the accent is assigned. An accent pairmay also contain other informational items, including but not limited toa height, width, orientation, shape, bias, finish, order of assembly,overlapping configuration and any other item describing a producedaccent or its relation to other accents within the template.

One informational item that may also be advantageously used is adescription of the location, orientation and type of a cut from materialfrom which an accent is to be fabricated. For example, it may be that anaccent will be fabricated from a printed material with a repeatingpattern, that pattern having a larger and visually distinguishableelement such as a large pictoral object such as a face or a flower.Ordinarily, such an object should not appear in a severed view orupside-down. However, in some cases the accent will be of such a formthat a cut will not be important, in which case it can be identified asan accent element that does not require positional information.

Also within the exemplary template of FIG. 1 are image wells 14 a, 14 band 14 c, shown in dashed lines, which are the locations for images tobe placed in the template. These image wells are not required in atemplate, but they may be included to provide perspective to the usershowing how the accent elements interplay with images that may beincluded in the final presentation page.

Templates may also include other elements, such as lines 15 a, 15 b and15 c, or other objects as desired. A template may also be associatedwith or include instructions for assembly, perhaps including a list ofoperations of assembly and a visual representation of the templateelements on a page.

Accent templates, as described above, are useful for coordinating theaccents that will become a part of a presented page. A number ofmaterials may be available for incorporation into those pages by way ofavailable accent templates, through the slots specified therein. Turningnow to FIG. 2, a number of designs might be available for use in apresentation page. For simplicity, this example references only visualpatterns, but it is to be understood that the materials made availablemay include variations in texture, composition, gloss and otherproperties as desired. Here, the available materials include a set oftwelve printed patterns, 101 a through 1011, and four solid colors, 102a through 102 d. Again, this set is merely one of an infinite varietythat can be used, presented here for the simplicity of explanation.

To facilitate the selection of patterns, a number of themes may becreated. A theme is simply a collection of slot to design assignments,two of which are shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B. In those themes, the slotsare enumerated between a set of pattern designs and a set of colordesigns, but no particular organization is required. The theme of FIG.3A takes on a botanical flavor, with the selection of floral and earthypatterns 101 a, 101 k and 101 h in slots 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Thetheme of FIG. 3B is more geometric, with the selection of geometricpatterns 101 c, 101 e and 101 i in slots 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Notethat both of these themes use the same colors, but these colors arearranged differently in slots 1-4.

As shown in FIG. 4, a wide variety of themes may be created, usingwhatever materials that may be in availability. The provision of suchthemes presents a person with an easier task in the selection of suchmaterials, as themes may be created specifying materials that arecoordinated in color, pattern, style, subject matter or otherattributes. As suggested above, accents may be used that are notrectangular in shape, and are not necessarily cut from a sheet ofcontinuous patterned paper. As shown in the theme of FIG. 5, suchaccents may include labels bearing singular or plural objects, ribbons,photograph corner mounts or accents, or other objects that are made apart of a particular theme. Such objects may be made a part of atemplate, such that a template may specify the kind of suchnon-patterned or non-cut objects included with other accent elements.However, for the purposes of simplicity, the majority of this disclosuresimply references patterns and colors.

The application of a theme to an accent template may be made as shown inFIG. 6. In this example, the accent template is divided between twopages, 20 a and 20 b. Accent templates that specify more than one pagemay be used where a presentation is viewed more than one page at a time,for example, in a book containing content on both sides of a page. Wheresuch presentation pages are viewed together, an accent template may beapplied with a common theme and with accents and other content appearingon both pages being coordinated therebetween. Although in this example atemplate is configured for two pages, an accent template may also beconfigured for more pages as desired. This may be done, for example, toprovide for coordination among a number of pages, permitting a person toselect a theme across several pages of a presentation without the burdenof selecting a template and a theme for smaller groups of pages.

Returning to FIG. 6, the accent elements of both pages 20 a and 20 b ofthe template are divided between three slots, represented by shading indiagonal lines to the right, diagonal lines to the left, andcross-hatched lines. A theme associates these slots to a design, whichassociations are 21 a for the first slot, 21 b for the second, and 21 cfor the third. After application of a theme to a template, a themedrepresentation is produced, which in this example is divided betweenpages 22 a and 22 b. A themed representation may be displayed for aperson, allowing for the evaluation of various template and themecombinations and a selection thereof

The themed representation of FIG. 6 may be displayed with image wellsindicated, such as with dashed lines as in the figure. This may assistthe viewer in perceiving the finished product. If desired, a themedrepresentation may also include images that are to become a part of thefinished product. Images are provided for the image wells, and before orafter application of a theme to the template, the images are insertedinto the representation such as shown in FIG. 7. Generally, an imagewill be referenced for each image well, and for some configurations theuploading of images over a network will be appropriate.

Eventually, a person making a presentation will make a final selectionof a template and a theme. At that time that person will desire toobtain the finished accented product. A system that applies templatesand themes may output a product in several forms. Ideally, this productwould be the final presentation itself, and machines may be constructedthat would do exactly that. For example, the fabrication of a finalpresentation might be the generation of an electronic file or record,perhaps containing an image of the presentation, stored to a tangiblemedium such as a hard disk or a portable medium such as a CD-ROM.Alternatively, the fabrication of a final presentation might be to atraditional physical scrapbooking page, or the creation of elements ofsuch a page such as physical accents or images thereof. It is recognizedthat at the present time most persons are restricted to machines thatprint single sheets of paper, and do not apply accents to a presentationautonomously. For most persons desiring a traditional physicalscrapbooking form, the components of a presentation will be created in aform to be assembled. Persons incorporating images into presentationsmay have photographs, images and other personal content available tothem beforehand, which do not need to be provided. For them, accents maybe provided in a raw form, that is in raw materials such as printedpaper ready to be cut, with instructions and/or templates to facilitateassembly. However, an entity may perform an additional service byproviding accents that are ready to adhere to a presentation without acutting or fashioning operation by the assembler.

For traditional scrapbooking, accents may be provided to the assemblerin a kit, optionally including instructions for assembly. Thus, in theordinary circumstance a person will adhere produced accents incombination with personally-supplied material to a base page, such as ablank page in a bound book. If the accents are provided to the assemblerin a ready-to-use form, they will be pre-cut to the size and formspecified by an accent template. Now referring to FIG. 8, the accentsspecified by the template and theme combination of FIG. 6 are shown,which exist as accents in three designs. The reader will recall that thefinished designs are determined through the application of the themeddesigns to the slots of the templates, and here where three slots werepresent in the accent template, three groups of patterned accents areproduced. Each group is formed from a base piece of material having theselected design, from which the accents of the group are cut. Althoughthese cuts may be made manually, they can be automated through the useof pre-made dies, or through the use of a programmable cutting machine.By doing so the end-user is relieved from having to acquire the stockbearing the design of a selected theme, and from having to cut theaccents himself.

If accents are machine-cut, the cutting operation may include accentsacross pages, across several template/theme combinations, or even acrossorders for different customers. By doing so, material may potentially beconserved. In the example of FIG. 8, accents are cut in the arrangementshown, which accents are across both pages of the originating template.Following cutting, the accent pieces can be separated and grouped bypage for the ease of presentation assembly.

Through the procedure described above, the number of presentation pagesthat can be specified can be quite large, which is determined by thenumber of accent templates available multiplied by the number ofavailable themes. The number of possible presentation pages can beincreased by permitting modifications to be made to the accenttemplates.

One modification that may be made is by rotation. A person selecting anaccent template may be presented with the option of selecting theoriginal orientation, or rotating the template by some amount. Where atemplate is of the same width and height, this is a relatively simpleoperation if rotations of 90, 180 and 270 degrees are made available. Byallowing this, the number of logical templates is increased by a factorof four.

For templates that contain accent elements for more than one page,rotation may be specified for each page. For example, the template ofFIG. 6 contains two pages, each of which may be rotated. As shown inFIG. 9, orthogonal rotation of the left page yields the originalnon-rotated arrangement 25 aa and three additional combinations 25 aa,25 ba, 25 ca and 25 da. Rotation of the right page produces twelveadditional arrangements for a total of sixteen. Where a templatecontains multiple pages, each may be rotated to increase the availablearrangements.

In the examples shown, accent templates are fashioned for display pagesthat are square. This makes rotation a relatively easy matter.Non-square pages may also be used. Also in the examples shown,orthogonal rotations are shown, that is rotations of 90, 180, and 270degrees that are orthogonal to the geometry of the accent elementswithin a template. Other rotations may also be used.

It may be desired to maintain the orientation of accents, patterns andother content even through rotation of a template or page. To that end,the accent pairs of a template may specify whether the accentcorresponding to the accent pair is to rotate with the rotation of itstemplate or to remain rotationally stable. Such an attribute may also beapplied to the content to be applied to a template, thus a accents oruser images may specify an orientation, or that they are not to berotated with a template or page.

It is to be understood that if rotation is permitted, a template shouldbe designed with that goal in mind. Thus, any accent elements that aredirectional in nature, such as text fields or elements that produce animage of an object, could be adversely effected. Such elements may bemade substantially square, if desired, to avoid this problem.Alternatively, rotations of other than 180 degrees might be disallowed.Alternatively, rotation of certain templates may be entirely disallowed.Also, if a template includes more than one page, a user may select toswap or reorder pages, thus providing more combinations in the output ofan accented presentation.

Exemplary Systems

In the description above, it is contemplated that the functions of aproduction system utilizing templates and accents might be incorporatedinto a single computer or other processing system, or might bedistributed among a number of processing systems located at dispersedlocations. For example, an optical computer-readable disc might containa library of templates, themes, patterns and other objects, and softwarefor accessing and utilizing these to determine a presentation page. Inanother example, a collection of templates might be located at onenetwork location, with patterns located elsewhere, and with softwarelocated at a third location configured to access templates, themes,patterns and other objects at their assigned network locations.

One consumer model uses a client-server approach, which allows forcertain conveniences to an end-user. Now referring to FIG. 10, apreferred client-server model utilizes a client 200 which accesses aserver 202 over a network, the client 200 and server 202 communicatingthrough the transmission of informational records as is known in networkcommunication. In this model, client 200 is maintained independently ofserver 202, and server 202 acts as a long-term repository of templates,patterns and other objects. Thus, client 200 need not maintain arepository of these objects beyond a session with server 202.

Client 200, however, does maintain software to provide networkcommunication to server 202, and also provides at least basicfunctionality for user interaction with server 202. In one example,client 200 is an ordinary consumer computer capable of operating a webbrowser that can display HTML formatted content and also run executablecode provided remotely, using a JAVA™ or a Flash™ interpreter. In thepreferred model, it is desired to require only generic functionality ofa client 200, locating application-specific functionality to a server202 on a long-term basis across interactive sessions with variousclients, thus permitting a wide base of end-users who may use this modelwithout substantial installation steps at client 200.

Server 202 is a system generally providing content to and receivingselections from clients 200. Server 202 maintains content to beprovided, which are here in a template repository 204, a user contentrepository 206, a pattern repository 208, and a repository for othercontent 210, which are further described below. Server 202 could be asingle computer device, although in alternative models server 202 is acollection of devices and network nodes operating as a single accesspoint for a client 200.

In the preferred model, and recognizing certain expected events shown tothe left in circles in FIG. 10, interaction between client 200 andserver 202 is generally as follows. A client 200 first makes a requestfor a network connection to server 202, which might be made over theInternet, in one example. With such a request for a connection 220between the two, a connection is established and server 202 returns anumber of informational items. This may include a screen confirming thata connection has been made, an introduction to the service provided atserver 202, identification of the provider, etc. In the course ofpresenting such informational items, a selection object is returned 222.The selection object is a device provided to client 200 to selectbetween a number of templates provided by the server 202, which objectmay also provide for the selection of other options, such the selectionof a theme or particular methods of interaction between server 202 andclient 200. An end-user at client 200 may then make a selection of atemplate 250 by interaction with client 200, which selection istransmitted 224 to server 202.

Following the selection of a template, it is delivered to the client 200from the template repository 204. Template repository 204 may include anumber of templates for the creation of accented presentation, whichtemplates may be fashioned in many forms. Of these forms, a preferredone for two-dimensional pages utilizes a modified form of the ScalableVector Graphics (SVG) standard published by the World Wide WebConsortium, which modifications permit the referencing of contentavailable on server 202 for display on client 200 to an end-user. TheSVG standard is not required, but rather it provides a convenientplatform for the description of graphical elements that may be definedfor a template and optionally for a produced accented presentation.

Although some web browsers include SVG functionality, the preferredmodel uses functionality not available to common SVG engines. Therefore,in the preferred model an engine is provided to client 200 by server 202capable of displaying rendered representations of templates, ofaccepting selections made by an end-user, and otherwise of interactingwith the functionality made available by server 202. In the preferredmodel this engine is Flash-based, meaning that it consists of codecapable of being interpreted and executed by a web browser that includesthe functionality provided by the Flash™ plugin now maintained by AdobeSystems. In alternative models, a different interpreter may be used inconnection with a web browser, or a custom web browser or anotherapplication may be used to provide similar template interpretive andselection functions. In yet another alternative, a template is providedthat is itself executable by client 200, the template maintaining userselections by internal program state.

Continuing in FIG. 10, upon the transmission of a selection of atemplate 224, server 202 delivers the selected template 226 and, in oneexample, a list of themes that may be applied to that template, by wayof a selection object. Some models may include a common set of themesapplicable to all available templates within repository 204, whileothers will provide for specific themes designed for a subset ofavailable templates. Other models may restrict a user's choices to thecontent specified in a theme, while others allow the selection ofindividual patterns and objects that may be applied to elements includedwithin a template. The selection of a theme, when made, is delivered toserver 202, and the selection of other content to be applied is furtherdiscussed below.

It is contemplated herein that some accented presentations will becompleted with only content made available by a provider, while otherpresentations will include content supplied by a user. For example, itmay be desired to present a customer with an accented presentation readyto accept user content, for example photographs attached to such apresentation. Alternatively, a user might provide content prior to thecreation of an accented presentation, incorporated therein at the timeof fabrication. Therefore, server 202 may include the optionalfunctionality of receiving and storing custom images and content. Upon auser indication of content desired to be used in a template 252, suchcontent may be transmitted 228 to server 202, which is stored in a usercontent repository 206.

At various times, a representation of a current template and its currentselections may be requested to be drawn 254 for the benefit of the enduser at client 200. That drawing process includes requesting objectsfrom server 202, including the request of patterns of a theme 234,custom images or other user content 230, and other objects that may beavailable for use with a current template 238. These are returned byserver from available repositories, returning patterns 236 fromrepository 208, user content 232 from repository 206, and other content240 from repository 210. Note, however, that the requesting of objectsfrom server 202 may be avoided where those objects are available such asthrough a cache. Likewise, user images and other content may bemaintained at client 200, which might need only be requested from server202 if a session is interrupted. Upon having the corresponding patterns,images and other objects corresponding to the user's selections within atemplate, the client computer may render a visual representation of theaccented presentation corresponding to the current user's selections.

As a user proceeds to use client 200 and a downloaded template, he willmake changes to the selections specifying the accents to be applied.Those selections may be to a theme 256, rotation 258, swap 260, andother selections made available through the template and itsaccompanying instructions and functionality. As these selections arereceived, client 200 maintains the state of these selections, changes towhich may cause a new draw event 254.

Eventually, a user can be expected to have made his selections to thetemplate, upon which he may desire that an accented presentation beproduced in accordance with a currently selected template and itsaccompanying selections. If so, a user may indicate to client 200 thathe is done 262 by executing an action such as by clicking a graphicalbutton or selecting a menu item, upon which the current selections 264and an identification of the current template are sent 242 to the server202, which submission may constitute an order for production.

Now turning to FIG. 11, a set of selections and identification of atemplate 264 may be sent from a client 200 to a server 202.Specifically, these selections and identification may be received andexecuted by an interpreter 270, although use of a unitary interpreter asshown is not required. In the example shown, server 202 is capable ofthree forms of accented presentation production, which provide examplesfor discussion of a wide range of possible production methods.

In the first production method, the output includes the rendering of adigital image. To that end, interpreter 270 includes a digital imagerenderer 272 which is operable to interpret an identified template andselections within an order. To render such an image, the renderer 272may access rendering instructions 278 corresponding to the identifiedtemplate, selected patterns from the pattern repository 208, othercontent 210, and user images and other content from repository 206, ifsuch user content has been uploaded and selected. The output of renderer272 may be an image or other electronic form of the final accentedpresentation if desired, subsequently stored for later use, however inthis example the image produced by renderer 272 is supplied to a printer288, which printer may output a hardcopy of an image in any desired orselected quality or format.

In a second production method, an image is not necessarily output, butrather portions of an accented presentation are produced. For example,the user may have selected that portions of the final presentation be ina specially made paper, for example textured paper. It may not be knownbeforehand what configuration those parts will take, and therefore theremay be an additional manufacturing step to take for the presentation.For that method, interpreter 270 includes an automation controller 274,which operates automation machinery 290 in the fabrication of thesepresentation portions. Controller 274 may access production instructions280 associated with the template identified by the user, whichinstructions may consider any selections made. Note that renderinginstructions 278 and production instructions 280 need not be deliveredto client 200, but may be held locally to server system 202.

In a third production method, neither image production nor automation isengaged, but rather pre-fashioned materials are made available for anorder. These materials may be made in a form that is ready to apply toan accented production, or they may require additional steps by theend-user. For this method, interpreter 270 includes an order assembler276, the output of which are instructions 292 which appear on a displayor other human-readable format for fashioning, providing and/or applyingparts of a final accented presentation specified by the identifiedtemplate in conjunction with user selections made. Order assembler 276utilizes a mapping 282 of these parts to materials in inventory,permitting instructions 292 to be made. A worker may read instructions292 and retrieve materials from inventory 294, applying whateverfashioning steps are needed, as may be specified by instructions 292.

Further in the example of FIG. 11, it is contemplated that severalproduction methods may be in use at the same time for an order, and thusan assembly step 296 is utilized to form a final product 298 for the enduser. The assembly step 296 may be simply collecting the output from theproduction methods used, but may also include steps to integrate theseoutput products into the final product 298, which may optionally be afinal accented presentation. For example, accents from inventory 294 orthe output of machinery 290 might be included or applied to a hardcopyproduced by printer 288.

Now it is to be recognized that the systems, methods, products andfeatures described above in relation to accented presentations may beincorporated singly, or any number of these features may beincorporated, consistent with the principles and purposes disclosedherein. It is therefore to be recognized that the products, systems andmethods described herein are merely exemplary and may be modified astaught herein and as will be understood by one of ordinary skill.

What is claimed:
 1. A method, performed by a server computing system, offacilitating the production of user-configurable accented presentations,the method comprising: generating, by the server computing system, adisplay of a plurality of templates that can be selected by a user fordesigning one or more pages of a presentation, each template comprisinga plurality of accent elements, each accent element being associatedwith one slot of a plurality of slots defined within the template;identifying, for each of the plurality of templates, a plurality ofthemes that can be applied to the template, wherein each theme defines aplurality of designs to apply to the accent elements of a templateincluding a mapping between each design and a slot of a template towhich the theme can be applied such that, when a theme is applied to atemplate, a design is applied to any accent element that is associatedwith the slot to which the design is mapped; generating a display of theplurality of themes for each template; sending the display of theplurality of templates and the display of the plurality of themes foreach template to a client computing device to enable the user to selecta template and a theme to apply to the selected template for designingone or more pages of the presentation; receiving, from the clientcomputing device, a user selection of a first template from among theplurality of templates and a user selection of a first theme to apply tothe first template, the first theme comprising a plurality of designsincluding a first design; generating one or more pages of thepresentation by applying the first theme to the first template includingdetermining mappings between at least some of the designs in thetemplate and the plurality of slots defined in the first template, themappings including a mapping between the first design and a first slotof the first template and applying each of the at least some of thedesigns defined within the first theme to the accent element of thefirst template that is associated with the slot to which the design ismapped including applying the first design to each accent element of thefirst template that is associated with the first slot; sending thegenerated one or more pages to the client computing device for displayto the user; receiving, from the client computing device, a user requestto modify the mapping of the first design to the first slot, themodification comprising mapping a second design of the first template tothe first slot; and updating the one or more pages of the presentationby applying the second design to each accent element of the firsttemplate that is associated with the first slot.
 2. The method of claim1, wherein the second design, prior to being mapped to the first slot,is mapped to another slot in the first template.
 3. The method of claim1, wherein the display of the plurality of themes is sent to the clientcomputing device in response to user input that selects the firsttemplate.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the designs comprise one ormore of: a pattern, a material, a texture, or a color.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein each template further comprises one or more image wellsdefining locations within the template where images can be placed. 6.The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the templates arerotatable.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein one or more of the accentelements of one or more of the templates do not rotate when the templateis rotated.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of theaccent elements include one or more of the following parameters: height,width, orientation, shape, bias, finish, order of assembly, oroverlapping configuration.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the seconddesign, prior to being mapped to the first slot, is not mapped toanother slot in the first template.
 10. A server computing system forproviding a design environment for developing pages of a scrapbook, theserver computing system comprising: one or more processors; and one ormore computer readable media storing computer executable instructionswhich when executed perform the following: generating a display of aplurality of templates that can be selected by a user for designing oneor more pages of a scrapbook, each template comprising a plurality ofaccent elements, each accent element being associated with one slot of aplurality of slots defined within the template; identifying, for each ofthe plurality of templates, a plurality of themes that can be applied tothe template, wherein each theme defines a plurality of designs to applyto the accent elements of a template including a mapping between eachdesign and a slot of a template to which the theme can be applied suchthat, when a theme is applied to a template, a design is applied to anyaccent element that is associated with the slot to which the design ismapped; generating a display of the plurality of themes for eachtemplate; sending the display of the plurality of templates and thedisplay of the plurality of themes for each template to a clientcomputing device to enable the user to select a template and a theme toapply to the selected template for designing one or more pages of thescrapbook; receiving, from the client computing device, a user selectionof a first template from among the plurality of templates and a userselection of a first theme to apply to the first template, the firsttheme comprising a plurality of designs including a first design;generating one or more pages of the scrapbook by applying the firsttheme to the first template including determining mappings between atleast some of the designs in the template and the plurality of slotsdefined in the first template, the mappings including a mapping betweenthe first design and a first slot of the first template and applyingeach of the at least some of the designs defined within the first themeto the accent element of the first template that is associated with theslot to which the design is mapped including applying the first designto each accent element of the first template that is associated with thefirst slot; sending the generated one or more pages to the clientcomputing device for display to the user; receiving, from the clientcomputing device, a user request to modify the mapping of the firstdesign to the first slot, the modification comprising mapping a seconddesign of the first template to the first slot; and updating the one ormore pages of the presentation by applying the second design to eachaccent element of the first template that is associated with the firstslot.
 11. The server computing system of claim 10, wherein the seconddesign, prior to being mapped to the first slot, is mapped to anotherslot in the first template.
 12. The server computing system of claim 10,wherein the display of the plurality of themes is sent to the clientcomputing device in response to user input that selects the firsttemplate.
 13. The server computing system of claim 10, wherein thedesigns comprise one or more of: a pattern, a material, a texture, or acolor.
 14. The server computing system of claim 10, wherein eachtemplate further comprises one or more image wells defining locationswithin the template where images can be placed.
 15. The server computingsystem of claim 10, wherein at least some of the templates arerotatable.
 16. The server computing system of claim 10, wherein one ormore of the accent templates of one or more of the templates do notrotate when the template is rotated.
 17. The server computing system ofclaim 10, wherein at least some of the accent elements include one ormore of the following parameters: height, width, orientation, shape,bias, finish, order of assembly, or overlapping configuration.
 18. Theserver computing system of claim 10, wherein the second design, prior tobeing mapped to the first slot, is not mapped to another slot in thefirst template.
 19. The server computing system of claim 10, wherein themappings are displayed by associating a displayable pattern with eachdesign in a theme and displaying the displayable pattern within eachcorresponding accent element in the display of a template.
 20. One ormore non-transitory computer readable media storing computer executableinstructions which when executed on a server computing system perform amethod of facilitating the production of user-configurable accentedpresentations, the method comprising: generating, by the servercomputing system, a display of a plurality of templates that can beselected by a user for designing one or more pages of a presentation,each template comprising a plurality of accent elements, each accentelement being associated with one slot of a plurality of slots definedwithin the template; identifying, for each of the plurality oftemplates, a plurality of themes that can be applied to the template,wherein each theme defines a plurality of designs to apply to the accentelements of a template including a mapping between each design and aslot of a template to which the theme can be applied such that, when atheme is applied to a template, a design is applied to any accentelement that is associated with the slot to which the design is mapped;generating a display of the plurality of themes for each template;sending the display of the plurality of templates and the display of theplurality of themes for each template to a client computing device toenable the user to select a template and a theme to apply to theselected template for designing one or more pages of the presentation;receiving, from the client computing device, a user selection of a firsttemplate from among the plurality of templates and a user selection of afirst theme to apply to the first template, the first theme comprising aplurality of designs including a first design; generating one or morepages of the presentation by applying the first theme to the firsttemplate including determining mappings between at least some of thedesigns in the template and the plurality of slots defined in the firsttemplate, the mappings including a mapping between the first design anda first slot of the first template and applying each of the at leastsome of the designs defined within the first theme to the accent elementof the first template that is associated with the slot to which thedesign is mapped including applying the first design to each accentelement of the first template that is associated with the first slot;sending the generated one or more pages to the client computing devicefor display to the user; receiving, from the client computing device, auser request to modify the mapping of the first design to the firstslot, the modification comprising mapping a second design of the firsttemplate to the first slot; and updating the one or more pages of thepresentation by applying the second design to each accent element of thefirst template that is associated with the first slot.